US Road Trip!

On June 17th I left Austin to start traveling around the United States. My plan is to continue up until the holidays in November and December when I will be with family. Then next year I might continue or settle down in whatever new place I hope to discover on my trip.

If you want to follow along on my journey the only place I am updating daily is on Instagram. @scottdavidgordon

Here’s a panorama from Fall Lake in northern Minnesota to give you a taste of the amzaing natural beauty I’ve been witnessing. I wish I had not waited so long to see all of these places but am glad now to have to opportunity to do so. Please check out my Instagram to see more!

Fall Lake looking towards the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota

Fall Lake looking towards the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota

Fort Davis National Historic Site

A selection of views and things that I saw while hiking at Ft Davis. It was a wonderful morning and a visually stimulating location!

Davis Mountains State Park Panoramas

Here are some panoramas that I made with my iPhone during two hikes at DMSP. The first three are from a hike early in the day along the Indian Lodge trail and a close to sunset hike along Skyline Drive Trail. Almost got to 15,000 steps, over 6 miles.

Sunset hike on Skyline Drive Trail.

One Red Balloon

Quite often after doing deliveries for the farm where I work, I’ll go for a walk in a nearby fallow field to decompress from the day and get some steps and fresh air. Last week on my walk far in the distance I saw something odd and out of place. Once I was close enough I realized what it was. Mind you this field is fairly out in the middle of nowhere. In the expanse of this recently plowed 15-acre plot of land was a very red metallic and mostly uninflated balloon tethered to another completely flat birthday balloon with ribbon and frilly fabric attached.

It was a curious little scene and it made me wonder how far it had traveled from the hand that possibly lost control of it and watched the cheery pair float off into the distance. They chose to land in this far-off field, a final resting place. The intention of bringing joy to some lucky recipient lost to me and the dirt.

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Commons Ford Relics

Commons Ford Ranch has to be one of my favorite places to hike in Austin. I shared my first post about it back on December 4th. The other day I decided to try a different trail and discovered many artifacts and relics of this land’s history that I had not seen before. These kinds of discoveries always get my imagination going. Who lived here previously and what were their lives like? I suppose it’s somewhat sad to think that the rusty and dilapidated remnants might be most all there is left of someone’s long-lived life. Tractor implements, a silo, barbed wire, a collapsed building, tires, and what looks like a well, skillfully built with care.

Onion Creek Greenbelt

Back in the fall of 2013 and in 2014, there were floods that made many of the 70’s era homes in the Onion Creek neighborhood of Austin unlivable. The city bought out many of them and they were demolished. Visiting these abandoned streets now feels quite odd. You can tell there used to be homes and people living there, but the traces are left merely to rows of useless driveways leading only to grassy fields and trees, strewn garbage, and other artifacts of some distant human presence. It’s striking that it is so easy to wipe almost clean a place lived in for decades.

After discovering that McKinney Falls was not accepting any more visitors because of limited capacity in the park, a friend and I decided to visit the Onion Creek Greenbelt. Neither of us had ever explored it. The GPS directed us to a spot at the back of this abandoned neighborhood. There was no obvious entrance to the greenbelt, so we walked down the eerie house-less streets in search of a way onto the trails. Eventually, we just pushed our way through a wall of spiny overgrowth at the back of someone’s former back yard and meandered for a while along many unused paths. When we started seeing people and dogs we knew we had found the main trail system.

What we were not expecting to find was a huge collection of old abandoned metal and concrete pipes strewn about the landscape in one area. They look quite old and possibly dislodged from underground during a flood some years ago. The discovery and timing were perfect, as the sun was starting to set, entering the golden hour. The shadows were getting longer, with the sun approaching the horizon, and the light quality was becoming somewhat softer and warmer. My friend and I both love ruins photography, abstraction, and composing the chaos and melding of nature and the man-made. Some of the collections of pipes and their intriguing accessory parts seemed to be like the ruins of an ancient temple. The kid in me felt kind of like an archeologist, finding a lost civilization in the jungle. But also like an artist attempting to create something new from what is at hand. A playful act of looking and seeking something visually appealing or interesting in the often overlooked. Here are some of my favorites from the hike. Nothing mind-blowing, but a fun exercise in a new creative environment full of potential.

Out To Okeechobee

How I wish that I had better photos to share all that I saw today. I went on a half-day road trip out west from Palm Beach to Lake Okeechobee. The most interesting moment was driving by a sugar cane field with 15 foot high flames, a monstrous plume of smoke you could see for miles, and an almost alarming amount of heat that wafted into my open window as I drove by. After doing some research I discovered how controversial it is. If you are curious there are two recent articles that I found at the Claims Journal and the Miami Herald websites. According to one article, there are 400,000 acres of sugar cane in Florida. Wow!

DuPuis Management Area, Canal Point, FL.

My first stop was the DuPuis Management Area where I went on a short hike. When I got there the parking lot was empty but upon leaving there was a gentleman resting against the map and information stand. Was not expecting to meet a retired motorcycle enthusiast taking a rest on his daily ride out in the country. We had a nice conversation and he recommended that I check out “the lock” just down the road. The lock helps maintain the water level for Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s 730 square mile Inland Sea, as boats leave or enter the canal to and from the lake. There’s a canal cut across the entire state to allow small boats passage. Turns out the Port Mayaca Lock & Dam is one of the few places you can get a good look at the lake since it is mostly hidden by a 40 ft. dike of earth and rock all along its perimeter. A historical sign next to a cemetery on the road to the lake gave a clue as to why such a large dike is necessary. In 1928 a storm surge broke through the then 6.6-foot dike and as many as 2500 people were killed.

Lake Okeechobee as seen from just south of the Port Mayaca Lock & Dam.

Being a farm photographer for so many years I now have a decent fascination for agriculture and get interested when I see farms and crops outside of my bubble. My route driving back toward the coast was somewhat random and it showed me two new types of farming I had not seen before. The sugar cane I mentioned already being the first. Found myself following a few semi-trucks with big caged trailers full of just harvested, and probably burned, sugar cane. The full ones heading towards a large industrial looking plant in the distance, and the empty ones heading back out for another load. No doubt a monolithic business.

The second type of farm I saw and was surprised by was turf. So many times I have seen a new housing development getting a delivery of pallets of grass to create someone’s new yard. Can’t say that I ever really thought about where it came from. As you can see from the picture below, there are literally 100’s of acres of mowed grass right next to the sugar cane fields. I watched as a specialized tractor cut up the strips of lawn and a few workers stacked it on pallets. One company’s website states they “offer muck-grown St. Augustine sod farmed on our fields throughout Western Palm Beach County.” Who knew!

Turf Farm along Old Conner’s Hwy heading southeast from Canal Point, FL., with a burning sugar cane field far in the distance.

Photos below: Top left- My trusty Mazda 3. Top right- Sugar cane field. Bottom right- The soil in this area is so very dark! Bottom left- If you’ve been to FL. you’ve seen the canals literally everywhere. They might be the reason this place is not all swampland.

David Allen Sibley

There must be 100’s of different bird guides available, but my favorite by far are the ones written and illustrated by master birder David Allen Sibley. Being an artist and having a love for painting of all types myself, probably has something to do with it. It’s hard to believe, but David hand-illustrated and painted every image in his guides, and I just love looking at them. According to the Audubon website he “painstakingly draws what he sees in the field—900 species for his most recent field guide—first in pencil and then in gouache paints. Sibley has been hailed as the heir to the great birder and artist Roger Tory Peterson, placing him in a long line of artist-naturalist hybrids that leads straight back to John James Audubon himself.”

Don’t get me wrong, photos of birds can be jaw-dropping. There is just artistry and uniformity to his paintings that I find very visually appealing. And the way all of the information is laid out works well and I find myself looking through the guide I have, cover to cover, over and over again. There is just so much to contemplate!

Found this splendid painting of a Carolina Chickadee by David on Pinterest.

Found this splendid painting of a Carolina Chickadee by David on Pinterest.

 

So if you have a bird feeder and are curious about what you are seeing, or if you want to get serious about birding, I highly recommend David’s books. When you get your hands on one I suspect you’ll appreciate the years of research and practice drawing and painting that obviously went into them. Birds are amazing and I’m grateful to have a guide to understand them better.

“I wanted a book that would show every plumage and every subspecies, at rest and in flight. A book that would give details on the plumages and habits of each species, describe songs and calls, and show the complete distribution of each species, all on the same page and all in a format that would allow easy comparisons between species.”
— David Allen Sibley from the preface of his 2000 edition guide.

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Love U!?

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“It’s hard to sustain love for others until we have a sense of inner abundance and sufficiency. When we experience inner impoverishment, love for another too early becomes hunger, for reassurance, for acclaim, and affirmation of our worth. Feeling incomplete inside of ourselves, we search for others to complete us. We can’t claim from others what we cannot give ourselves.”
— Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection by Sharon Salzberg

Saw this graffiti along the Barton Creek Greenbelt under Loop 360 yesterday, and at first viewed it as a compliment from the creator, but then realized it could also be a prescription. And not an easy one in my experience. It sure seems like there are a lot of messages that come from our culture and society that do not prioritize, encourage, or model self-love.

National Trails

Are you aware that there is a system of 1000’s of miles of trails all over the United States? The Appalachian is probably the most famous but there is so much more. While planning my drive to Florida for Thanksgiving I discovered a brochure for the Florida National Scenic Trail and there I saw a map similar to the one above with many more routes than I knew existed.

My first thought was what it would be like to hike them all! What diverse landscapes you would see, a thorough survey of this whole country. Since my camping trip last weekend, I have been wondering how I can spend more time in nature. It brings me a lot of joy to hike and bird watch and identify trees and plants. Why not make it a priority?

Click the map for a larger version! The National Trails System Act of 1968 helped to establish and promote the development and healthy uses of trails by all.

Click the map for a larger version! The National Trails System Act of 1968 helped to establish and promote the development and healthy uses of trails by all.

Weekend at the Coast

This weekend I traveled down to the gulf coast of Texas with a friend to do some camping. The choice of where to stay was mostly dictated by the popularity and lack of availability of almost all of the campsites in the whole state. It’s a beautiful time of year to be out of doors. We settled on Lake Corpus Christi State Park, which only had a few spaces left. It would not have been my first choice but it worked out wonderfully and I’m so glad to have expanded my view of how nice the Texas coast can be.

The Corpus Christi downtown bay-front as seen from a deteriorating barrier wall around the marina.

The state park was great and allowed us a home base to explore the city of Corpus Christi and pay a visit to the Padre Island National Sea Shore. The weather was perfect and it was fortuitous to be away from home and outdoors when the election results came in. We watched Biden’s speech at our camp picnic table with a nice fire going. And it was easy to look up and see a hint of the Milky Way, some planets, and lots of stars. All of the other campers were well behaved, which made it very relaxing.

Malaquite Beach at the Padre Island National Sea Shore.

Malaquite Beach at the Padre Island National Sea Shore.

Miles of dunes covered in flowering plants along the beach.

Miles of dunes covered in flowering plants along the beach.

After living in Texas for over 30 years of my life, I lament the fact that I have only been to the coast a very few times. Growing up in central Texas I just never heard anything nice about it. In high school, Padre was the hedonistic spring break destination, which I never participated in. Then you hear about oil spills and the like and it just never sounded that appealing.

Well, I was absolutely impressed with the nature and beaches that I saw and wish now I had made more frequent trips. One thing I love is birding, and at the state park, I saw three gorgeous birds, that you would only see at the southern tip of Texas and into Mexico. The tropical Great Kiskadee and Green Jay, plus an uncommon Audubon’s Oriole. So colorful and exciting to behold!

There aren’t a lot of photos to share since my intention was to mostly stay off my phone and just have an experience. It’s interesting being a photographer because people often assume you will prioritize capturing the most amazing images wherever you go. Maybe some do, but I was just happy to get out into nature and look, listen, breathe, and be. I highly recommend it.

Uneven Terrain

This pictured sign on the Barton Creek Greenbelt struck me as more than a warning along a hiking trail in the woods. When I saw it this morning my thought was it also could be a way to view life. Being alive and moving forward, we are all going to experience uneven terrain. Ups and downs are to be expected.

Should we fear and avoid the challenges and bumps along our path, or instead be mindful of where we tread and take each obstacle as an opportunity for growth? What do you think?

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.”
— Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
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